Once again, sorry...

Again I must begin this blog with another apology - I have been hopeless at updating it for the past couple of months. I will offer one excuse that many of my support staff have left recently including the RA coordinator at a very critical time. So my last month has been spent readying the institution for RA Elections, Results and Training, most of which has now occurred successfully or is prepared and ready to go! Its an excuse but I shouldn't have any I need to blog and I promise I will now get better at it - Guild Council, you are not the only ones not getting updated, my Mum is out of the loop recently too! Now for the update on my recent projects...

The Housing Fair - This was incredibly well attended - more so than any in recent years without definitive numbers. The impact of the campaign remains to be seen though. In the new year we will be trying to assess whether doing it early had any impact on when students get their houses. The research we did on the day suggested that the message of choice came through just not necessarily the patience side of the message. If it was not successful we will review when we hold it next year and possibly push it back further.

The SHAC - This has continued to move forward behind the scenes with work on the model that will be chased. This will happen ready to launch once Welcome Week next year rolls around (once I'm long gone!). I don't want to present anything to you in its current form but I will show you what it looks like from every angle once we are further along in the process than we are now as there are further kinks to iron out yet. The presentation I give to you will be very thorough and show you exactly what the SHAC will look like so I want to hang fire on showing you just yet.

RA Elections and Results Night - RA elections went well on the whole especially without an RA coordinator, largely thanks to some fantastic work by the RAs. We nearly hit our target of 250 position nominations but fell short by ten and we will now only have 12 open positions to re-open in the by-elections, significantly less than previous years. Turnout was also positive with most halls exceeding 50%. Their first Resexec was on Monday night and many have engaged with the system already before the training. The training is completely planned, ready to execute this weekend and almost the whole cohort of RAs are attending. RA Results Night went according to plan and most of the winning candidates attended with a good time being had by all. The RA elections also gave me a great opportunity to go out and talk to students about their issues as I door-knocked every hall in a week promoting the elections but also talking to students about general issues they were having. I heard some stories from students living in halls which will give me much ammunition when negotiating at the University around halls fees.

Vale Fireworks - This was a massive success after the RAs agreed to cover the extra cost of the pontoon on the lake. I think it made for an even more impressive spectacle than last year and as always the Vale was packed with people - students and members of the local community - perhaps more so than in previous years. However I would say that the event needs to look more like a Guild event as the university takes much of the credit for the event, though Geoff Pringle did kindly offer to cover some of the extra cost incurred out of the HAS events budget.

Halls of Residence Fees - As well as RAs and the SHAC, this has taken up most of my time in the past few months. I have sat on various university committees lobbying for a fairer set of prices. At this time we have a better range of prices with more affordable accommodation and some on the Vale, but we will continue to lobby for change on this and have a commitment to a working group from the university to try and find any savings that can be made. The group met today for the first time and we will continue to push for more savings while keeping you updated as things may move quickly and change fast in the next month or so, you may see something at the first Guild Council of next term around the issue.

Other - I have also been doing various other things in the last month including:
*Representing students at appeals and sat on a University Fitness to Practice
*Spent a whole day setting up fences for Vale Fireworks!
*Consulted students with the other Sabbs about HE Funding
*Along with the other Sabbs, had a visit from Lee Sanders, the new Registrar and Secretary
*Sat on the Nitebus working group
*Set up the Freshers Fest Review Group and had two meetings to discuss issues and also having discussions about other RA processes
*Helped the Arts and Law Careers and Employability Reps to set up a Christmas social for the Student Reps in that department. This was because I sit on the Arts and Law Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committee.
*Spoke about HMO Policy
*Had dinner at the Hub (seeing what students have to eat)
*Interviewed and hired a new RA Co-ordinator who starts in the new year
*Had a meeting with Lesley Stewart at HAS and John Ripley, national boss at Victoria Halls to discuss current student issues at the Birmingham site, especially after the Redbrick front page

Once again my apologies about the lack of blogging and the inaccessibility of this blog with it being ridiculously long, thanks for reading if you could manage it and I promise the blogs will get more frequent again. Hope everyone is well - Merry Christmas!!!

Sorry and my pre Guild Council Blog

Firstly, my apologies for the appalling infrequency of my blogs for the last month; it has been a particularly busy time and I have not made the time to blog. So here is a catch up on everything I have been doing recently.

Strategic Plan - The Guild is in the process of developing its strategic plan and at the start of September we had the first of many meetings to decide on the themes of the plan one of which is our impact in the Community! There will be more discussions surrounding the plan before it is taken for consultation with you, the students. It is quite an operational plan and allows each officer’s manifestos each year to feed into the fabric of the Guild and get certain important aims embedded in the Guild's culture.

Welcome Weekend and Welcome Week - I was heavily involved in the planning of Welcome Week and I was around Welcome Weekend for the move-in days. The move-in weekend went relatively well aside from traffic issues because of Mason but overall the Welcome Crew seemed well motivated and helped out as much as possible. There were no major problems only smaller problems that were all solved relatively quickly thanks to a great effort on the part of HAS. Welcome Week itself was long, tiring and difficult but a massive success. The Officer Team spoke to loads of new students and our purple Welcome Crew were fantastic. There were some problems but nothing that couldn't be solved and although I ended the week exhausted I was also delighted we had such a great week!

Start of term - The first weeks of term were again busy, I went to my first Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committee for the College of Arts and Law. It was an interesting experience listening to lecturers at ground level talk about the quality of Student Reps and of their degree programmes. I also sat on the appointments panel again for the vacant external trustee positions. I also attended accommodation management group and talked about the progress of the Community Warden Scheme, the Student Mentor Scheme and Residence Associations while also discussing Welcome Weekend and the start of term from Hospitality and Accommodation Services' point of view.

Halls of Residence Fees - Also in the week of the start of term my campaign to reduce halls of residence fees took a new turn. I was given a meeting with Gill Ball Acting Registrar and Secretary and Director of Finance at the university following the release of the Guild's report on Accommodation pricing policies of our institution. She was particularly positive about the report and mentioned that it highlighted some areas for improvement and a need to provide more affordable accommodation for students. The proposals we suggested will now be taken further before the Residence fees are set for the next year, I will keep you updated but at the moment we are not reacting to anything until a definitive response to the report becomes apparent.

The SHAC - I have continued to study whether the SHAC is a feasible and it is becoming very apparent that it is. We visited Cardiff Students' Union who have a fully functioning letting agent and it works well though it was more commercial than I would like ours to be. I have now submitted a motion to this Guild Council and subject to approval I will continue to push on with the research and will work through a number of models before presenting a final model to Guild Council sometime in the future. It is an exciting project though and one that could end up having massive benefits for students at Birmingham.

Housing Campaign - The Housing Fair will now be held on 25th November. For many years the housing campaign and subsequent fair had been held after Christmas with little or no effect on the rumour that students must find a house before Christmas. This rumour could not be further from the truth, students do not need to get their house for sometime as there is a massive surplus of houses in Selly Oak; you could wait until July and still find a decent house for the next year. The Housing Fair will be a celebration of choice, that students have the choice to get know better the people they want to live with and they should take advantage of that choice; getting a house in November doesn’t help anyone except unscrupulous Letting Agents and Landlords. The Housing Fair will show you the houses and landlords on offer but DO NOT sign up to a house then, look around what is available and wait until after Christmas to go back and get the house. You have the power, letting agents and landlords need you to let their houses, wait until you are ready.

Vale Fireworks – For those who heard rumours about the Vale Fireworks, they will now go ahead as planned and as spectacular as always at the Vale funded by your Residence Associations so many thanks to them for putting up the extra money and many thanks to our Venues department who have worked very hard to make sure it happens.

Thanks for reading and see you at Guild Council!

Manchester City!!!

I very nearly forgot to endulge myself with a blog about my beloved Manchester City I know it has nothing to do with the Guild but I live and die with the football club I have supported since I was a baby and their fortunes often dictate my mood. I am obviously ecstatic at the moment after the Abu Dhabi takeover and world domination awaits! I believe my colleague Mark Smith recently mentioned this in his blog so Mark, if we do lose Robinho to Chelsea in January I'm not worried as I'm sure when Arsenal fall out of the Champions League after the group phase Cesc Fabregas will come knocking on our Sheikh's door and join a real football club! In the meantime let me share a recent opinion expressed by a Manchester City fan on one of our local websites which should permeate the mind of our VPEA Tom Marley every time he visits a petrol station...

'Anyway, be of good cheer, as every time a Rag (United fan) fills up his petrol tank...he adds to our transfer budget. I would like to thank all the Rags for contributing to the Messi-Kaka fund (and I'm not talking about the contents of Fergies shorts when he finally figures out what is happening). Just think about it Rags: at the pump, when you see the little numbers whirl around before your sozzled cockerney eyes, that's our bank balance going up up up and I thank you for your contribution.'

And I will add my thanks to every united fan who fills up their car at the pump, 'We've got Robinho!' Sorry for the wavering from Guild updates - it won't happen too often!

The SHAC and the return of QHC

Just to update you on what I've been doing since the two weeks of training courses in August. I have met with the University several times to once again remind them that we are putting together a piece of research detailing why we as a Guild believe that halls of residence rents should be reduced and the report will be finished very soon. I have also thrashed out what the one stop shop for housing and community (I mentioned this in an earlier blog about my plans for the year ahead) will look like. We are still in the discussion stages, have set up a task group and will visit similar services at Cardiff and Swansea Union after Welcome Week.

It will be called the SHAC (Student Housing Advice Centre) and will have three elements to it. There will be a business element, meaning a letting agent which will be trustworthy, charge no fees to tenants and will, initially, only advertise accredited landlords. It will also include tenancy feedback at the end of contracts and random spot-checks on houses with bad behaviour or bad practice on the part of landlords being punished by suspension from advertising in the SHAC. This provides a clear deterrent against unacceptable behaviour from landlords but also encourages good practice. The SHAC will have a service element, with a specialist housing advisor to go with the existing housing clinic services, such as contract checking. It will be a place where students can go before and throughout their tenancy for advice about their rights and how to deal with their landlords. Finally the SHAC will have an element of Community and will be the physical base of the community wardens. It will provide advice on how to live in a thriving local community and give the opportunity for students to get involved in their community through showcasing our many volunteering projects. The SHAC will become the first port of call for students looking to rent a house and will, in time, drive up the quality of houses in Selly Oak, while empowering students to fight for their rights as tenants.

It looks as though Queens Hospital Close will be a halls of residence again this year, although it is now owned by Liberty Living, the university has rented 200 nominated bed spaces for Birmingham freshers again for this year, Queens is a wonderful hall and many freshers though initially disappointed with their allocation will love their time at QHC. I also visited Mason Hall this week to be shown round the site which will of course be open in three weeks time for Freshers moving in, the structure is stunning and despite some quirky features; it is a top quality halls of residence (a picture of a room at the new Mason is shown below). Tonight I go to the OSCARS with Jen, I wish it was the real thing but it is actually a University awards night at Shackleton so that should be fun and tomorrow we have our staff summer social. I can't wait for everyone to get back and the mayhem of Welcome Week to start - three weeks is too long!

Action Through Advocacy - The Apathy Escalator

On the 19th August for the second time in less than a month I visited Hertfordshire University for an NUS training course, this one called Action Through Advocacy. It had a different atmosphere and different people from around the country than Active Political Leadership and I had a wonderful group again, it seems I have been very lucky. Dainty David (in-joke, sorry) took us on a roller coaster ride through the apathy staircase or as our group created from just some paper the apathy escalator (not environmentally friendly, sorry Pippa). It was extremely useful in helping me plan my campaigns for the year and providing an excellent framework, balanced with the fun of the evening activities which ended up with me and four others from our group driving around Hatfield for half an hour looking for the police station! It was a good week cut short by my return to Birmingham via a tour of London (I got lost driving home on Thursday night) to sit on the appointments panel for the new trustee board on Friday morning. Photo of the Apathy Escalator to come...

'The Snooty Local Councillor'

It's a rainy afternoon in Brum just like it was in Leeds for the rest of last week at the recent training course I attended run by UNIPOL and NUS. I can safely say this was the most useful training course I've been on so far and it was extremely informative. UNIPOL knows the student housing market inside out and provided a wealth of information on current trends in the student housing sector, legal issues, regulation, community issues, accreditation and students unions' relationship with the institution. I gathered many statistics and gained shared experience around housing issues that will be particularly relevant in the months to come. We even had a mock Community Forum when I was able to be the snooty Local Councillor that didn't like Students' Unions, which was nice.

Also, on Monday I attended a very productive meeting about the Landlord Accreditation Scheme when a complaints procedure was finally nailed down and will make the scheme a lot more robust when it comes to dealing with landlords who are not adhering to it's principles. It will also help when my idea of the one-stop shop for housing and community takes shape. This morning we're off to Action through Advocacy NUS Training for my third multiple day training course and I'm returning to the de Haviland campus at Hertfordshire Uni, which I think may be a slightly snooty name for a campus but never mind, see you soon!

First full week - the University, Welcome Week and the crime increase in Selly Oak

Seen as its Friday afternoon I just thought I'd update you on what I've been doing in my first full week as Vice President Housing and Community. I've already met with Hospitality and Accommodation Services (HAS) at the university and informed them of some of my intentions for the year. My one stop shop for housing and community issues for students seems something that they will be able to get behind and I will be grateful for the resource. The volunteering showcase is also something that will have the university's support. On Tuesday I also had lunch with some officers from UCL who came to visit the Guild and see what we do. They told tales of governance problems galore - they had massive difficulty getting their governance review through their Union Council and the whole process was derailed for them to pick up again now! I've never been more grateful for the referendum!

We are currently in the process of going through the Welcome Crew applications so those of you waiting for an answer will be receiving a reply in due course, I'm sure you will appreciate the volume of applications we have had and that it takes some time to go through all of these. The RA booklets that go out to Freshers with their accommodation offers have gone to HAS and will be sent out, they look fantastic thanks to our wonderful Marketing and Communications Department.

Finally I've also started to attend the community meetings which I am required to attend to represent you: the students. The Selly Oak Acquisitive Crime Group focuses on burglary and vehicle damage. Unfortunately it appears that domestic burglary has increased in Bournbrook from the same period last year, however that means that the Council will likely pour money into the area to bring the statistics down including approval of more money for more installations of computrace, which allows the Police to trace stolen laptops and recover them, the scheme has been 100% successful since it was piloted last year. I also attended a crime meeting about the city centre and much of it was focused on the need for crime prevention in clubs, pubs and bars where many valuables are stolen, also with an emphasis on the fact that the items you come home without may simply be lost property and many clubs keep lost property safe for you to pick up at a later date. Creative schemes to help protect students' property when they are out is currently being developed. Next week, I will hopefully be heading out to Leeds to attend a Housing and Community training conference and I'll blog about that when I get back, in the mean-time; have a great weekend!

The Year Ahead

As I said in my last blog I now have some completely formed ideas about what a successful year for me will look like. Along with representing students in the community, to the university and co-ordinating Residence Associations, I have some key aims that I will achieve to clearly benefit students; all of them derived from my manifesto that you the students elected me on. I have three main aims with many other smaller priorities:

1) Halls of Residence Fees - Rents at this university are astronomically high compared to other universities of our stature. I will work with Hospitality and Accommodation Services to find alternative ways of funding the current system rather than passing on the burden to students who already face spiralling debts at university. However if the answer that is worked towards is not adequate for students I am not afraid of a campaign that will show the university the strength of feeling within the student body on this issue. The issue has to be taken seriously as it is not only affecting the reputation of the university but it is also blowing a huge hole in first-years pockets. You elected me to run a cross campus campaign and I will do so if the conclusions reached with the University to make it easier for students are not adequate to you as students, and the university should be prepared for that.

2) Improving Accreditation and making it easier for students to move to private housing - We are currently looking into the possibility of having a space within the Guild that is a one stop shop for Housing and Community. It will be a place where only accredited landlords can advertise once a robust complaints procedure is up and running, making it a trusted letting agent for students where they can get a house from a reputable landlord and have an ability to officially complain with the landlords fearing reprisal. It will cut out the uncertainty of searching for a house amongst the letting agents in Selly Oak, eliminating unfair letting fees and bad advice. It will also serve as an advice centre on housing issues and will be the base for the already exceptional Community Warden Scheme. This is a long term project in a very public partnership with the university but there will hopefully be scope for a temporary vehicle for the service this year before it is hopefully written into the building redevelopment.

3) Improve Community Relations - Too often the negative aspect of students in the community is focused on and stereotypes about students are perpetuated by the odd occurrence of poor behaviour. I want to focus on the positive aspects of our work in the community and will organise and execute a community showcase on campus for local residents, councillors, emergency services, business owners or anyone who has a stake in the local community to show how amazing our volunteering projects and different community schemes are. Hopefully this will help to alleviate the animosity sometimes felt between students and permanent local residents.

4) Other aims:

• Make the Housing Roadshow bigger and better
• Drop-in sessions on campus and at halls of residence sites for students moving into private housing
• Campaign for lighting in Selly Park along with Hollie
• Lobby for Wheely Bins in Selly Oak
• Lobby for recycling bins in first-year flats
• Sshhh campaign
• Consolidate the 'Rate Our Landlord' website

These are the aims I will seek to achieve this year and I have some key success parameters that I will strive to meet. I will update you on my progress throughout my blogs and Guild Council reports while also informing you of the other activities I have undertaken on your behalf, hope you're having a great summer!

The beginning...

I've now been in post for three working days and I'm already incredibly motivated to get on with projects and start making tangible changes that benefit you. To update you on the end of our training since my last blog we've been going through a really intense two weeks. Our NUS Regional Officer Emily Cannon did some in-house training which really got us thinking and we were all really appreciative of the work she did with us. We went through some more 1-2-1 handover and I met the different halls of residence site managers interspersed with presentations from the university.

Our two-day vision setting session facilitated by Barry an outside consultant crystallised my aims in my mind and I now know definitively what I want to achieve for students and I know my parameters for success. There are certain priorities - more important than others - and I know exactly what I need to do to be successful. The session was very useful for me and it also allowed the team to develop a calendar for the year relating everything back to our Officer Group's personal mission statement. Finally on the last day in July we travelled to Alton Towers on a fun Sabbatical day out after a hard month. Myself, Mark and Hollie won some prizes - Rich and Tom were hopeless at the games and Jen gave me possibly the funniest moments of my life on 'Air'. On the first we moved into the offices and yesterday had a day-long presentation from Academic services.

I would like to thank Naush for a fantastic handover and for being an amazing friend over the past year - you have always been there for me and I will miss you so so much - I can never live up to what an incredible VPHC you have been. I leave you with some more pictures again; the first is me in the new office. The next is a picture of me and Naush from the Guild Awards and the last symbolises the end of handover - me and Mark leaving Alton Towers with our winnings.

Training - 3 Weeks In

Hello and welcome to my blog as Vice President Housing and Community (Elect - Naush would still want me to say). This is obviously my first post, as you can see by the fact that there are no other posts yet. I hope everyone is having a great summer and I thought I would take the opportunity to just blog a little bit about the training the rest of the team and myself have been going through since 1st July.

There has been much to get through already from speed dating the departments of the Guild to wearing ridiculous hats, from our Crystal Maze-like tour of the Guild which ended in some, may I say less than dignified behaviour to a very eventful 24 hour team building day! This executive team has been through it all and we've only been together for close to three weeks. I am confident that we are the right mix of styles and personalities and we will manage to effect the change you elected us for.

Tom Marley (Vice President Education and Access), Hollie Jones (Vice President Welfare), Mark Smith (Vice President Sport) and myself have just returned from, without a doubt, the most intense part of the training so far: the NUS course, Active Political Leadership. We met sabbatical officers from across the country and were intrigued to find out how our union compares to others. We also learnt how to build strong and active unions, while talking about leadership, power and contributing to workshops that will hopefully give us the skills we need for the year ahead. This was all tied together in Fibchester 2008 where the NUS create a fake town and fake university: you become a fake executive team and have to deal with all that NUS throws at you! I certainly felt after the end of the three hours that if I can deal with the local residents of Fibchester, my Community strategies should be successful in Birmingham because the local residents of Fibchester were horrific.

Anyway I'll leave you with a few pictures of our training so far: the first is the team in our different coloured hats - mine has a red tip because I am, according to the rest of the team, passionate, fiery and emotional about the things I care about but neutral and considered about other issues. The second is of me about to stab our play-doh representation of the university in a very sarcastic portrayal of our year in office, we are of course looking for a strong, respectful working relationship with our partner institution. Hope anyone reading this is well and enjoy your summer, I'll keep you posted, thanks for reading!